The sale of TikTok is officially in motion, with several investors set to take over the American operations of the video-sharing platform next month.
Back in January, TikTok was made available for US users only just hours after it was shut down by a Supreme Court ruling. The social media platform ceased operating in the country on January 18) after the court set a deadline for the site to be sold to American owners or address the national security concerns identified by Congress.
The future of the site was first thrown into question when its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, lost an appeal against a US law seeking to ban it. ByteDance also said repeatedly that it was not willing to sell, although doing so would allow it to remain available in the country.
The sell-or-ban measure for TikTok was enacted into law by an outgoing Biden last year amid claims that the company’s ownership structure could allow the Chinese government to gain access to the data of its millions of American users.
Now, per The Hollywood Reporter, a new deal will see TikTok have a new joint venture owner stateside in the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC.
The publication notes that the new US operations of TikTok will have three “managing investors” that will collectively own 45 per cent of the company: Oracle Corporation, Silver Lake, and MGX (Abu Dhabi’s state investment firm). Another 5 per cent will be owned by other new investors, while 30.1 per cent will be “held by affiliates of certain existing investors of ByteDance, and 19.9 per cent will be retained by ByteDance.”
TikTok CEO Shou Chew revealed the update in a memo to staff on Thursday (December 18), a copy of which was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. In it, he thanked staffers for their “efforts keep us operating at the highest level”.
He added: “With these agreements in place, our focus must stay where it’s always been—firmly on delivering for our users, creators, businesses and the global TikTok community.”
Trump signed an executive order sealing the TikTok deal in back September, with details about the deal’s specifics scarce at the time.
Chew confirmed that the deal was officially signed yesterday, and highlighted some key terms of the deal, including “retraining the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation.” Likewise, Oracle will be overseeing data protection, and “ultimate decision-making authority for reviewing and approving all content moderation and related policies within the United States.”
